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Apple Thunderbolt Cable and Promise Thunderbolt RAID Systems Hit the Apple Store

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Firewire does 80Mbps this does 500 on the 4 bay. Quite a difference
 
Stoked that one device has finally arrived. Wonder what HDD they are using and if you can swap out (later) 1TBs for 3TBs. The fact that you can now unleash all that speed with an iMac is a game-changer. I have been listening to the gospel about Mac Pros and am glad I don't have to get one. I have owned at least five Mac towers in the past and am not missing them one bit. I read the comments this morning on the news thread and mostly babies complaining about a $50 cable. Obviously they are not in any kind of big bandwidth scenarios or they'd be thrilled. Video editing at high speeds on an iMac = :)
 
OK, let's see how fast this system is to transfer a bunch of data.

Promise Pegasus R6 = 12TB of storage. (in RAID0 for our purposes)
Thunderbolt = 10Gb/s = 800MB/s (theoretical) of data transfer bandwidth.

12TB / 800MB/s = 12,000GB / 0.8GB/s = 15,000 seconds to transfer.

15,000 / 3600 = 4 hours 10 minutes to transfer a full load.

:eek: Shows you just how much data a full set of drives are, and what a pain it is to work with.

Sonnet have an 8-drive Thunderbolt Raid storage box that holds 24TB

http://www.sonnettech.com/news/nab2011/

24TB would take over 8 hours to fill up if Thunderbolt was running at full speed. Even with next-generation Thunderbolt 100Gb/s, it would take an hour to transfer at theoretical max speeds. I won't even bother to work out how long it would take at USB2 or USB3 speeds.

Oh, OK I will.

USB2. 40MB/s. 24TB would take 6.9 days or an entire week to transfer. Bearable as a one-off if you have no urgent need for the data, but not if you have same-day need for the data.
 
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JazzyGB1 said:
I just don't get the attraction to having to daisy chain everything - that's a terrible idea.
By all means give us 5 Thunderbolt connections on a Mac that allow us to connect a HD or display or interface or whatever we like, that'd be great, but having to daisy chain stuff from just 1 port like on the MacBook Pro is Archaic and will massively hinder its adoption
Click to expand...

So, which ports on the MBP should have been replaced with additional TB ports? One of the USB ports to end up with only one USB port?

Once TB->FW bridges become available (and cheap enough), a second TB will likely replace the existing FW port on MBPs.

And the fact that FW can daisy chain has not stopped Apple in putting (I think) five FW ports on their Mac Pro.
 
Boot from thunderebolt?

Now that an interface is finally out, the question can finally be answered: Can we use a thunderbolt drive as a boot drive?
 
RedTomato said:
OK, let's see how fast this system is to transfer a bunch of data.

Promise Pegasus R6 = 12TB.
Thunderbolt = 10Gb/s = 800MB/s (theoretical)

12TB / 800MB/s = 12,000GB / 0.8GB/s = 15,000 seconds to transfer.

15,000 / 3600 = 4 hours 10 minutes to transfer a full load. :eek: Shows you just how much data a full set of drives are, and what a pain it is to work with.

Sonnet have an 8-drive Thunderbolt Raid storage box that holds 24TB

http://www.sonnettech.com/news/nab2011/

24GB would take over 8 hours to fill up if Thunderbolt was running at full speed. Even with next-generation Thunderbolt 100Gb/s, it would take an hour to transfer at theoretical max speeds. I won't even bother to work out how long it would take at USB2 or USB3 speeds.

Oh, OK I will. USB2. 40MB/s. 24TB would take 6.9 days or an entire week to transfer. Bearable as a one-off if you have no urgent need for the data, but not if you have same-day need for the data.
Click to expand...

One slight issue with your calculations. The 12TB RAID system won't hold 12TB of data, since, you know, it's a RAID system.
 
$50 for a cable, really? And I thought the premium for FireWire gear was bad.

Meanwhile, USB3 is already being included in commodity-priced consumer portable hard drives including the cable, and USB3 and eSATA 2.5" enclosures can be had for less than $20. I didn't mind paying a premium for FW when it was the king of the hill, but I'm feeling kind of grumpy about my USB3-less, eSATA-less iMac at the moment.
 
Boot Drive

So, has anyone run a test yet to find out for sure if we can use Thunderbolt drives as a boot drive. (I want to upgrade to a SSD once they get cheaper, but not deal with opening my iMac.)
 
AaronEdwards said:
One slight issue with your calculations. The 12TB RAID system won't hold 12TB of data, since, you know, it's a RAID system.
Click to expand...

RAID-0 (though highly fault prone that would be) says you're wrong. ;)

z4n3 said:
But then again I have been sold on the 12TB Promise ThunderBolt system, connected to a Mac Mini server as soon as Apple refreshes them, this will meet all my needs at home for at least 2 years or more!.
Click to expand...

Overpay much ?

A 5 bay QNAP system would be cheaper and meet your needs much better.
 
Meever said:
Doesn't FireWire so 800mbps?

I would wait for monoprice cables and a raid that can really take advantage of the speed.
Click to expand...
Firewire 800 offers 800 Mb/s theoretically, but only offers 65 to 75 MB/s practically.
A RAID with 6 HDDs could offer up to 650MB/s, if one would use RAID 0.

stefmesman said:
Firewire does 80Mbps this does 500 on the 4 bay. Quite a difference
Click to expand...

Mbps is the same as Mb/s, but it is not the same as MB/s. Eight Mb (Megabit) are the same as one MB (MegaByte), thus 80 Mbps is 10 MB/s.

What Is the Difference Between Mbps and MBps?
 
RobQuads said:
USB3 cables cost a fraction of that Thunderbolt cable (OK not 'quite' as good tech but its still a new technology)
Click to expand...

USB has been around for a long time, although USB 3.0 is a rather new standard it is not a significant change in terms of engineering from USB 2.0. So the cost for making the cables should be about the same. And a lot of companies make USB cables, thus far only one company makes Thunderbolt cables.
 
iBug2 said:
Well, you could saturate it.

http://barefeats.com/ssd6g05.html

3GB sequential read from 8 SSD's stripped. Which makes 24Gbit, which is faster than TB can handle. So if there was an external RAID adapter to control these SSD's, that would do it.
Click to expand...

Oh come on. That setup used 8 x $550 240 GB SSDs, 1x $480 SAS RAID card, 1x $650 8-bay SAS enclosure = $5,530 for 1.875 TB of available storage. Not to mention the price of the Mac Pro.
 
nilka said:
I have takkes with representatives from LaCie about the LaCie littl big disk with dual ssd and thunderbolt, and they assured me it will be possible to boot from it.
Click to expand...
This is good news but the little big disk is not quite big enough for my use. I would prefer a 1 or 2 TB external hard drive for use as a bootable clone backup. The 4/8 TB Promise TB system is overkill for my own personal needs.
 
z4n3 said:
I would pay double that and possibly purchase another TC :D that could be used for the very reason I purchased the first one! and finally be able to have access to my huge Image and video bank on any equipment in my apartment without having to have copies eating disk space on every computer.

But then again I have been sold on the 12TB Promise ThunderBolt system, connected to a Mac Mini server as soon as Apple refreshes them, this will meet all my needs at home for at least 2 years or more!.

To be honest with you and do not get me wrong, TC is great for some people, but not for people like myself who deal with large amounts of data at any given time, I also tried to use it for something it was not made for I guess :eek:

Mine is sitting there with the occasional use as video server to view videos on my iPad from the sofa....:apple:
Click to expand...
what the hell do you use your TC for that you want to get another one? That makes no sense, i don't understand what feature would compel you to spend $500 for 3tb of storage if all you want to do is plug it in to your computer for your media files? Do you even know understand what a TC is for? Do us a favor and buy an external hard drive instead of a TC, or set up a NAS at home because buying multiple TC's is just plain dumb, idc if you have unlimited money in your bank account. :D
 
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xxBURT0Nxx said:
what the hell do you use your TC for that you want to get another one? That makes no sense, i don't understand what feature would compel you to spend $500 for 3tb of storage if all you want to do is plug it in to your computer for your media files? Do you even know understand what a TC is for?
Click to expand...

Airdisk acts as a sort of "NAS". A grossly overpriced and unflexible one, but one nonetheless.

The guy probably just doesn't know of the alternatives out there.
 
This one ugly HDD!

While I can certainly appreciate the technology and applaud Promise for being one of the first to adopt it, they seriously need to hire better industrial designers. Most of their product line looks absolutely hideous! Perhaps Jony Ive could give them some design tips. Just sayin'
 
KnightWRX said:
Airdisk acts as a sort of "NAS". A grossly overpriced and unflexible one, but one nonetheless.

The guy probably just doesn't know of the alternatives out there.
Click to expand...
I understand that, and that's my point, why would you want TWO TC's?

Just a pure waste of money, and not the right solution for what he is trying to do. And the addition of a TB port would provide no benefit other than if you are always plugging the computer directly into the TC, which then defeats the purpose of the TC...
 
G-technology

This thing is fugly and they are so cheap that they don't even include the cables. I think I'll wait for G-technology to launch their Thunderbolt solutions. Better design, better service and they always include cables for every type of connector on the box.
 
Way to pricey for me. I'll stick to my 20TB storage server that gets around 125MB/s per drive (Gigabit Ethernet) for the price of one of their 4x1TB systems. Might have paid less than that.


But the big thing, $50 for the cable??? Okay, I could understand $30 if you needed ANOTHER ONE, but the drives don't come with one? CHEAP!
 
xxBURT0Nxx said:
And the addition of a TB port would provide no benefit other than if you are always plugging the computer directly into the TC, which then defeats the purpose of the TC...
Click to expand...

A TC with Thunderbolt would have no benefit whatsoever. None. 0.

The TC's hardware must be connected through a SATA interface at 3 Gbps or at least 1.5 Gbps already, and the switch ports are 1 Gbps and only 3 can be connected on the LAN port that has access to the drive. Thunderbolt offers no advantage here.
 
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